illustration of the principle laid down in our first chapter, that the passion for drink is more unbridled in the savage than in civilised men. For whilst the cultivated race is remarkably sober, the half-castes in their immediate contiguity are drunkards and gamblers, and the aborigines of the interior, with many of whom they rarely come into contact, are the most debauched of all. When they can procure spirits, or when they prepare their native beverages, they drink until they are intoxicated, and remain in that condition until the supply is completely exhausted. * * * * * In no people has the transition from intemperance to sobriety been so marked as in those of the United States. The accounts of their drinking habits in the early part of this century are hardly credible, and are repulsive beyond description; in fact, they are worse than anything to be found in modern European records. The price of the native spirits was exceedingly low, varying from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d. per gallon, and the consumption was enormous. We have some hesitation, after what has been said concerning Sweden, in accepting statistics as a guide, but Morewood gives a table, which he says was compiled by the marshals of the United States and the secretaries of the territories,[329] and which shows that in one year the distillation and consumption of spirits reached 25,456,432 gallons; whilst according to another writer the quantity distilled in 1817 was about 25,000,000. But it must not be forgotten that a very large proportion of this liquid fire was used in barter with the Indians, with what effect history has but too faithfully recorded. Nor were these all the spirits which were consumed in the United States, for we find that as early as 1790 about 3,679,000 gallons were imported, and in the years immediately preceding 1806 the average annual importation had reached 9,750,000 gallons. Besides being manufactured from the usual substances, such as cereals, the native spirits were distilled from peaches, apples, and two kinds of maple; and not only was their price low, but the charge for licenses to sell them and other intoxicating drinks was equally so, varying from ten to twenty-five dollars; in fact, every possible encouragement was given to the production and consumption of home-made alcoholic beverages. Wines, too, were largely imported from all parts of the world, and in 1805 a company of emigrants planted what appears to have been the first vineyard in the United States, namely, in New Switzerland, Indiana, from which very excellent wine was manufactured.